


A Man Out of Time

by Dillian



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU - Ghost Story, Angst, Dubious Consent, FrostIron - Freeform, IronFrost - Freeform, M/M, Mystery, Period-Typical Homophobia, Romance, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2020-10-18 10:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20637833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: Loki is the younger brother of silent-era film star, Thor Odinson.  At 14, he's too old to play children's roles anymore, but he's still too young for the kind of adult roles he'd like to play.  Then right when it finally looks like he's getting his chance, tragedy strikes.Tony Stark graduated from High School when he was 14.  Aged 15 and a Freshman in college, he is surprised to find himself haunted by the spirit of a teenager who died 55 years earlier.  What does Loki want, and how far will Tony have to go, to give it to him?This story is on hiatus, as of December 2019, because I had an idea for another one that is currently consuming my mind.





	1. Someone to Watch Over Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There's a somebody I'm longing to see,  
I hope that he turns out to be  
Someone who'll watch over me.  
I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood  
I know I could always be good  
With one who'll watch over me.
> 
> Although he may not be the man some  
Girls think of as handsome,  
To my heart he carries the key.  
Won't you tell him please to put on some speed,  
Follow my lead, oh, how I need  
Someone to watch over me.”  
\-- Gertrude Lawrence, “Someone to Watch Over Me”

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Loki, Thor, Odin, Frigga** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1981**

School used to be fine. It was a private school, kind of a genius thing. Lot of kids like me there, Reed Richards, and Victor Doom, and some others. My best friend Bruce Banner went there, and we hung out together, and it was cool. College though? College sucks. If one more frat-rat asshole tries to give me a swirlie, I swear, I’m killing his ass.

Yeah, so I wasn’t used to being a loner, if you know what I mean? I was always part of the cool crowd, and you know, I was a kid, I was dumb. I was one of the cool kids at the private school for geniuses, and I stupidly thought that was always going to mean something, and so when I got here and discovered I was now a nerd, it came as this big shock. Not going to say I was suicidal or any of that shit. Tony Stark doesn’t do suicidal. But it was a shock, let’s just say that.

Here’s what life’s like when you’re a nerd, okay? Number one, you’d better have a dorm room to yourself. Jarvis made them give me one. I wasn’t going to go to Dad about the shit that was happening, but there was a while back last Fall where I sort of had to say something to somebody, and Jarvis is easy to talk to. I told him, and he did some shit, I’m not sure of the exact details. You know those dinky little boxes they give you? Two beds, two desks etcetera, and all that happy horseshit? I now have one of those to myself. They moved one of the beds out, and that’s where I put my video equipment. Which brings me to the second thing about being a nerd:

Focus on your hobbies. I’m going to say that one more time for the kids in the back: _ Focus _ on your fucking _ hobbies_. One day they might be all that’s keeping you alive. Another day, you might learn something. I did, but I’ll get to that part later.

Number three: Why even bother to fit in? Look, I’m fucking sixteen, okay? Nobody’s going to take me for 21, they’re not even going to take me for 18, so why pretend? Everybody always says, “Oh, you’ll hit your growth spurt Tony,” and blah blah blah. Maybe I will, who the fuck even knows? If you let it bother you, you will go nuts. Just be yourself, that’s all you can do.

Number four is keep up your grades, but you already know that. Number five is if you can afford to, skip the fucking dining hall. That shit they serve there will probably kill you. Number six is… I can’t think of a six. Let me tell what happened with the video equipment instead.

It was Bruce’s idea. We were AV Club in High School, which believe it or not meant we were the coolest of the cool at our high school. And we also knew all this stuff, from setting up all the equipment for the teachers. And we both had video cameras in high school, and so naturally we took them with us when we went to college. So he says to me, “We need to use that shit, we can make video messages and send them to each other and all that happy horseshit.” So we’ve both been doing that.

So this is something that happened with one that I was making: Picture my room, okay? Tony Stark’s bed on one side (don’t cream yourselves, girls), all my equipment set up on the other side. Video camera always running, kind of a surveillance thing? Kind of half that, and half so I can make tapes for Bruce whenever I feel like it. Thing runs all night long, because I have had assholes break in sometimes, some of those frat-rat dickwads who shouldn’t even be in the dorms anymore. And it was at night: That was when something happened.

Let’s get this out of the way: I’m not a virgin. And when I did it, I did a chick, and I liked it, I liked it a lot. On the video though, this was a dude… Was it a dude? Not fucking sure what it was, or who, or whatever. Anyway, let me continue:

Here’s my tape, alright? This is what I saw the next morning when I ran the footage. It’s grainy of course, you know how tapes get when you record on them over and over. Grainy footage, black-and-white of course, and… I swear the door never opened. One minute he wasn’t there, the next minute he was. There were no gaps in the film, although it was kind of old, maybe it wore out a little? It looked like he just appeared. And it was weird, he was wearing a suit, but not a modern suit.

Bruce is really into all this New Wave, alright? Which isn’t the same as punk, in case you didn’t know that. If you’ve seen any of them, Punkers are the ones with Mohawks and safety pins through their noses, New Wavers are the ones with skinny ties and black-framed glasses, like it’s always the 1950’s for them. Bruce has this jacket that his dad used to wear when he was a kid. Big shoulders, narrow lapels, kind of a black-and-white tweed kind of a thing. Bruce loves that jacket. Says it’s part of his New Wave aesthetic, which is how he puts it. So, I know what the 1950’s look like. The guy on the tape didn’t look 50’s, he looked like he was from longer ago than that.

He also looked like he was about my age, which was weird. Guys my age don’t go around in suits, you know? But this guy was. He was this tall guy, kind of skinny, dark hair slicked back with what Jarvis calls greasy kid-stuff. He was kind of pale, and he had dark eyes and sort of a greyish-colored suit on. And, what he did? He kissed me. 

Yeah, you heard that right. Weird mystery-guy turns up in my room in the middle of the night and he kisses me. Why? And who was he? What was he doing there? I kind of feel like I might never find out any of that stuff, and you know what? I hate that. Not that I like having random strangers kiss me when I’m asleep… Random _ male _ strangers, I’m not gay, I told you that already. Random any kind of strangers, you just don’t want total strangers doing shit to you when you’re asleep and you can’t say anything...

<strike>Would I have told him no? Honestly, I can’t decide. There was this one moment when the tape caught him full-face, and you could really see him. There was something about his face, I don’t know what it was. It was a good-looking face, but that wasn’t it. There was something about it that made it seem like there was a guy who felt like I feel. Like, he was all alone, like maybe there was a million people all around him, but he felt like he was all alone, like that. Like he was unhappy, he was really lonely, and really, really unhappy, which… Everybody feels that way sometimes, right? If I’d been awake, I would have talked to him. Would I have let him kiss me? Would I have maybe kissed him? Honest to god, I don’t know.</strike>

What I’m trying to say: It’s the not knowing that really bugs the fuck out of me. I just want to find out who it was. And I put another tape in the machine, a brand new one, this time. If he comes back, I’ll get a good picture of him, but that’s a big if. What if he never does? What if I go to my grave, and I never find out who did that? It’s the most annoying feeling in the world, I almost want to tell Bruce about it, you know, get some ideas from him that might help me find out? Only if I do, I’ll have to tell him about the kiss. <strike>I’m _ not _ telling him about the kiss. I don’t want my best friend to think I’m gay.</strike>

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

**Noises offstage:**

**The Father:** “Thor, this is the third time… [unintelligible] ...You knew you had costume tests in the morning.”

**The Son:** “Pop, I’m 18.”

**The Father:** “Yes. You’re underage…”

Loki’s the only person who uses the library. Other people go in there sure, but only Loki uses it. Right now he’s sitting in this giant-enormous leather chair, next to one of the absurd medieval-looking stained-glass windows that somebody thought it would be a good idea to put in here. One of Pop’s ideas, probably. Pop’s the one who has all the ideas about how a star should live. Thor’s money pays for it, Pop picks it out, everybody else just has to live with it. Loki’s got his legs swung over one of the chair’s arms, his head’s resting against the back, he’s got one of the leatherbound books Pop probably picked out along with the decorator, open on his lap. It’s one of the Collected Works of Shakespeare. He’s reading a play. _ Richard III_, if you’re curious.

The yelling’s loud enough that you can hear it all over the house, probably. Pop’s after Thor again. He’s been after Thor quite a lot lately. Thor’s ego has always been bigger than his giant muscles, which is saying something, but since he turned 18? Brother, you don’t want to know!

Thor also can’t seem to hold back from pushing Pop. Every day it’s something new. One day he’s bought a new roadster without consulting him. “_ My money_, Pop,” he goes, and Pop says, “YOU CRASHED THE LAST ONE, THAT’S WHY I SAID NO MORE CARS.” The next day he’s disappeared off to Carmel by the Sea without telling anyone, with some college girl he’s met, and Pop has to send private detectives out looking for him. Maybe Loki’s taken to telling Pop anymore, when he hears something about his brother’s plans? Don’t make a federal case out of it, it’s necessary. If it’s up to him, Thor’s probably going to get himself killed.

Loki’s nose is buried deep in the book. “Now is the winter of our discontent,” King Richard says, “made glorious summer by this sun of York;/ And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house/ In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.” King Richard is something else, alright! He’s a villain, but what a villain! What a part to play, if a fellow were old enough… Sometimes it feels like Loki’s never going to be old enough, or at least nobody’s ever going to recognize that he’s old enough, not just to play Richard, but for any real parts, or any real life, or anything. Sometimes it feels like he’s going to be a kid forever.

Back into the book: “I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,” Richard says… Richard was a kid brother too. Shakespeare makes out like he was so misshapen, but was he really? Because the way he talks, he just sounds like any normal kid brother. Say you had a growth spurt almost a year ago, which finally made people realize you’re too old for kids’ parts anymore, but are they giving you any adult parts? Are they even thinking about you for them? Say you’ve got this brother, who is definitely made to court an amorous looking-glass, and he gets all the love's majesty anybody could want, and every girl who sees him immediately falls madly in love with him before he even opens his big mouth. You don’t need to be misshapen to get mad about that kind of stuff. Anybody would get at least a little mad.

Now there’s another voice coming in, in the middle of Thor and Pop’s argument. Mama’s voice. She’s saying something to Pop, “Calm down,” probably, or something like that. “Remember your blood pressure Odin,” then she’ll say something to Thor, probably to stop trying Pop’s patience. Same thing every time there’s an argument, Mama’s always the one to settle it. Now they’re both going to go their separate ways. Pop’ll go over to Asgard Studios probably, talk to somebody about something to do with Thor’s next picture. Thor’ll… He won’t come in here, will he? Thor hate’s libraries.

**Scene in the library:**

**The Older Brother:** (scowling) “You told Pop, didn’t you?”

**The Younger Brother:** (with a serious look on his face) “About the speakeasy? Thor, what was I supposed to do?”

**The Older Brother:** “Not a speakeasy. -- A club.”

**The Younger Brother:** “It was a speakeasy. Have you read about the kind of stuff they serve in those places? You might have been poisoned.”

**The Older Brother:** (sighing) “You worry too much, Loki.”

**The Younger Brother:** (with a shrug) “So sue me, I care about you.”


	2. When the Lights Go Down...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I like dreamin' cause dreamin' can make you mine.  
I like dreamin', closing my eyes and feeling fine.  
When the lights go down, I'm holding you so tight.  
Got you in my arms and it's paradise 'til the morning light.”  
\-- Kenny Nolan, “I Like Dreamin’”

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Loki, Thor, ** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1981**

So I figured out who it had to have been in the videotape: It was somebody from the Theatre department, it had to have been. I was at Laufeyson Theatre, I was setting up equipment for another Friday night performance. Then I saw a program from an old play. One of these Shakespeare in Modern Costume things, you know? That’s who it had to be, isn’t it? Somebody probably kept his costume after the play, and he came over here just to fuck with me. Oh well, fuck him. Someday I’ll own Stark Productions, and he’ll still just be a waiter doing auditions and not getting any callbacks. I’m on my way up in this world, and I won’t let the assholes slow me down.

<strike>But the thing is, I keep dreaming about him. About the guy. And it’s always the same dream: It doesn’t feel like I’m asleep. I’ll get this tickly feeling like there’s someone else in the room, and I’ll open my eyes. Never anyone there. And no one caught on videotape the next morning, which is how I know it’s just a dream. _ Am _ I gay? That’s who dreams about guys kissing them, isn’t it? Gay guys?</strike>

Oh well. I’ll figure it out. Sooner or later, I figure out everything. Anyway though, I guess I should give you some background on me, and who I am, what I’m doing here, etcetera, and all that happy horseshit.

My dad’s Howard Stark. If you watch TV, you’ve heard of him. I’ve known my whole life that he wanted me to go into the TV business too, and I used to think fuck him, I’ll do what I want. Here’s what changed that:

It was 1975. I’m ten, okay? We were filming _ Captain America_. It was this running scene, one of the ones where Cap runs really fast? They do those with a green screen, first you film him running, then you overlay this other footage in back of him, slowed way down, and that makes him look like he’s going faster. Only of course I didn’t know that back then. I was just ten, remember? And Happy was in charge of the camera, suddenly he looks at me, and he’s like, “Tony, you want to film this one?” And it seemed really boring at the time, but then a couple of days later he showed me the scene after they’d overlaid other footage into it. That was when I realized you can do anything with a camera. You just have to know how to do it. Thus, Film School.

SCU has the best Film school in Southern California. It’s pretty expensive, but like I said: My dad’s Howard Stark. After I finish here, I’m going into television, but I’m not doing just canned network programming like Dad does. I’m doing prestige TV. Stuff that’s just as challenging as they do in the movies, only for the small screen. There is all kinds of potential there, and nobody’s going for it yet.

Okay, so where does Laufeyson Theatre fit in? It’s a part-time job, more like an internship. They film all the student productions. Obie Stane’s the guy in charge of that, and I’m his assistant. It’s a shitty job, because I have to do all the work, but in a couple of years, Stane’s going to graduate. I’m going to have his job when he’s gone. 

I keep thinking I’m going to see the guy that broke into my room during one of the productions. Like, especially when they do the Shakespeare in Modern Dress things, I keep thinking I’ll see him, and I ask myself: What would I do if I did?

I’d see him, and I’d know his face: The black eyebrows, and those dark, dark eyes, and the hair that looks jet-black in the video. And I think, what if he talks to me? Would I tell him I know what he did? Maybe I would, and I’d just say, “Fuck you,” really go for it, you know? Maybe I’d keep it a secret, though, let him think I didn’t know he’d even done anything. I could do shit back to him, play tricks and stuff. I’d build to a crescendo, over a couple of months or so. Then when I make him cry, that’s when I tell him I know what he did. Or if I could really embarrass him in front of a whole lot of people. So far I haven’t seen him, but I’ll keep looking.

Tomorrow’s another production. More Shakespeare of course, because that’s all they do at Laufeyson. So I’ll blow off my classes, I’ll spend the day setting up equipment. I need to bring my videocam too, get some footage for my semester final in Intro to Film Production.

We’re supposed to “create atmosphere,” and Laufeyson is full of atmosphere. I swear, sometimes I think that place is haunted. There’s these arched windows, and you look up at them, you think, “What if something looked back at me?” And the balconies: Like Ford Theatre, you know, where Lincoln was assassinated? Anything could have happened in those balconies, and anyone could be in them, alive or dead…

I’m joking, of course I don’t believe in ghosts. But if there were ghosts, they would be there. Maybe I’ll add a ghost to my footage after I finish filming. I’ll say I don’t have any idea how it got there. Could I could start a new legend here on campus? That would be cool.

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

Naturally, Thor has to make a big fuss about the costuming for _ Romeo and Juliet_. “Tights?” he says, “I don’t wear tights.” Ye gods, how ignorant! Has he somehow missed the entire history of modern theatre? John Barrymore wears tights. Is he saying he’s better than John Barrymore? Please. He can’t even learn his lines.

“Why do I have to,” he’ll ask, again and again, “for a silent picture?” He won’t ask Pop, because he knows what he’ll say, but he asks Loki, every single time they run lines together. It’s tiresome.

You know what else is tiresome? Romeo and Juliet. Not the play because it’s Shakespeare, naturally it’s good. The characters are tiresome. They’re both so stupid. Romeo is a classic skirt-chaser. Every single girl he sees, he immediately falls madly in love with her, and you have to ask: How much does he really love any of them? And Juliet is barely thirteen. She doesn’t really know what love is. This guy shows up, and he’s probably the only guy who’s ever made love to her. So naturally she’s ready to kill herself because of him? How does that make any sense?

Still, the dialogue: “If I profane with my unworthiest hand/ This holy shrine,” Romeo says, and then she responds, “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,/ Which mannerly devotion shows in this;/ For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,/ And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.” It’s good poetry, and it’s also really good flirtation.

And then to hear Thor butcher it… To have to hear him, time after time, and always stumbling over the same lines: “Have not saints _ lips_,” he’ll say, “and holy palms too?”

Should you point out that it’s “palmers,” not “palms”? You have to, because there’ll be lip-readers in the audience, there always are.

“_Palmers_,” you say for, like the thousandth time or so, “not _palms_, Thor.” You don’t explain what palmers are, because it’s not like he’ll understand, or care, if he did understand. You just go on.

**Loki:** “Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”

**Thor:** “O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;/ They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”

His thumping delivery is painful. It’s like he’s reading a laundry list. Some people can’t get poetry, yeah, but there’s more to these lines than poetry. There’s characterization, can’t he get that? He always sounds like the bad kid, reading “I will not throw spit-wads in school,” after the teacher takes a ruler to him.

**Thor:** (plodding delivery as usual) “Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take./ Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.” He breaks off, starts again: “I won’t wear tights, Loki. They can’t make me.”

**His brother:** (rolling his eyes, also as usual) “Explain that to Pop, then.”

**Thor:** “You know he won’t listen. -- Where did we leave off? Sin from thy _lips_? O trespass… Trespass?”

Someday there’s going to be dialogue in movies. They’re already doing recorded music, dialogue is going to be next. Thor will be doomed. He can’t read a line to save his life. What then? Are they going to get somebody to coach him? There are muscle-bound lunkheads just like him, all over the country. They’ll get somebody else to take his place so easily.

Or… Here’s a thought: Maybe then it’ll be time for people who can read lines for a change. Would that be so strange? Maybe then Loki will have a chance, maybe he’ll be the one playing Shakespeare…

**Loki:** “From the top, Thor. This is poetry, you have to get it right.”

**Thor:** “I got the gist of it, that’s what matters. You know Heimdall will let it pass.”

(He probably will, too. Everybody always lets Thor get away with everything.)

**Thor:** “My lips, two blushing penguins, ready stand/ To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

**Loki:** (mentally shrugging) “Good penguin, you do wrong your hand too much,/ Which mannerly devotion shows in this…”

And so we go.


	3. I'm Going Hollywood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Out where they say let us be gay,  
I'm going Hollywood.
> 
> I'll ballyhoo, greetings to you  
I'm going Hollywood.
> 
> While you sleepy heads are in the hay,  
I'll be dancing with a sun kissed baby.  
I'm on my way, where's my beret,  
I'm going Hollywood.”  
\-- Bing Crosby, “Going Hollywood”

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Loki ** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1981**

I told Bruce. I had to. It’s weird when things happen like this, you get so jumpy. I watched the footage I did at Laufeyson, and saw something, and it just freaked me the fuck out. Not something big. Here’s what I saw:

Camera pans past the windows. I remembered doing that, I remembered how I was thinking I might put a face up there, pretend there was a ghost, etcetera. Camera moves down to the main seating, I remembered doing that. And then up to the balconies. There was this movement there, with one of the curtains. One of the green curtains, thick velvet they look like, but I’ve never been up there, I’ve never touched them or anything. One of those curtains moves, like somebody is pushing it, and I didn’t remember seeing that happen, and I just freaked.

Which is crazy, of course. Probably the air came on right then and blew it. That happens to curtains, right? The air starts, it blows through a vent nearby and the curtain moves. And I wouldn’t notice, would I? That shit happens all the time.

But that showed me how much Mystery Guy has fucked with my brain, and I called Bruce. I even talked to him about what happened, although I wasn’t planning on it.

So Bruce is like, “Somebody broke into your room?”

I’m like, “I guess that’s what happened? I think I locked the door.”

“Oh, you _ think_.” It was like I could hear Bruce rolling his eyes when he said that. "Well they broke in either way,” he says, “because they didn’t knock. Either that or it was a ghost.”

A ghost. Very funny. Ha ha.

I told Bruce about the curtain in Laufeyson too. I knew Bruce believes there really are ghosts. Maybe I thought listening to him talk about them would calm me down or something? When he goes all nerdy and shit about stuff, sometimes it does.

“You know, you could find out if it’s a ghost,” he said. “There are ways.”

Bruce has told me some of the ways before. I let him tell me all of them again anyway.

“Ouija board,” he says.

I think about the time we tried a Ouija board once when he was staying over with me. “I like beer,” it spelled out, “I want a beer.” It was incredibly easy making the little thing move, without Bruce noticing it.

“You could also just talk to the ghost,” Bruce says. "I know you can't take Ouija boards seriously."

Yeah, like I’d talk to open air in the middle of Laufeyson Theatre? “The security would see me,” I say. “I’d look crazy.”

“Yeah, well you are…” Bruce stopped. “Talk to it in your room,” he says like he just had an idea. “Turn on the videocam first, then talk to it." He sounded really excited; for him, this was a good idea. "Ask it questions. Even if you don’t see anything, the camera might. It’s happened before...”

Well it hasn't of course. That was a prowler in my room. Ghosts aren’t real. How could they be real? There’s no scientific evidence, there’s not even any credible reports. People used to think there were ghosts because they didn’t understand how the world worked. I don’t know why some people still believe in them now. Dumb? Mostly? ...Well Bruce isn’t dumb, but he does believe in everything. I swear, you could take him up into the mountains, and he’d be looking for Bigfoot. Here's the thing though, he said that about talking to this supposed ghost, and a creepy feeling suddenly goes down my back.

“Yeah, like I’m going to do that.” Just for a second, I swear to you, I was picturing doing it, and then a ghost answers. _ The _ ghost. Mystery Guy, _ as a ghost _.

Halloween in January, it felt like. Not Halloween the way it is now, with us almost adults and shit. Halloween the way it is when you’re seven, when you’re going out Trick-or-Treating, and you really believe almost anything might jump out of the shadows and get you. Like going into the school bathroom and saying “Bloody Mary,” and you really believe she's going to appear.

“Yeah, you won’t do it? Chicken,” Bruce says. “Tony Stark’s a chicken. Okay, when’s semester break for you?”

Bruce goes to C.A. University, Los Angeles. They’re not on the same system as us, and all their school breaks are different.

“End of the week,” I tell him. “Finals are right now.”

Bruce is like, “I’ll come over this weekend. We’ll try this together.”

“If you _ have _ to pretend this is real,” I say, “knock yourself the hell out.”

I was making a joke, and it is a joke, because come on, ghosts aren’t real. Well, maybe they’re real? Maybe if I saw some credible evidence? Bruce has talked to me about ghosts before. Pretty damn sure he’s said they stay in one place though. So like, either the theatre or my dorm room, but not both. Never both. Ergo, this definitely isn’t a ghost.

I’m cool with having Bruce over, though. It’s been too long since we’ve hung out together. We’ll do his fun little ghost game, and I’ll find us some other stuff to do that’s actually awesome. Stark Theatre shows classic movies on the weekends. I’ll have to look and see what’s showing.

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

Mercutio is a great part. Naturally, Shakespeare doesn’t write anything but good parts. It’s not the largest part, but every line is telling.

This is not a part Loki’s spent a lot of time studying; he's never read _ Romeo and Juliet _ all that carefully, not until he had to help Thor get ready for the picture he's doing. When you’re giving lines to Romeo, a lot of the time you’re saying Mercutio’s lines. Then you can’t help but start to understand his character:

He sees things better than Romeo does, and he can be really sarcastic about what he notices. “I dreamt a dream last night,” Romeo says at one point.

“So did I,” Mercutio says.

“Well, what was yours?” Romeo asks.

“That dreamers often lie.”

That’s Mercutio. He’s cynical, but he’s also completely loyal to Romeo. He even dies for him, and he can’t help but make a joke about it while he’s dying.

A fellow could do a lot worse than to play Mercutio. The part is also open right now. Pop was on the phone this morning, talking to the studio. The actor who was playing the part just died, drugs, they said, they think it was drugs.

This is the kind of thing that happens all the time in Hollywood, by the way. People lose their heads, and they do things, dangerous things. Wally Reid, who went to a sanatorium to try and shake his addiction to opium, and now he’s dead. Or the woman, whatever her name was, who died at one of Fatty Arbuckle’s parties. Everybody knows Fatty threw wild parties. Or… Here’s a terrifying one: There was a girl. Who even remembers her name? Loki heard about her while he was working on _ Hearts of the Prairie_, when he was twelve. One of the bit-players was talking about her.

“We were on location,” he said. “_The Warrens of Virginia_. Her hoop skirt caught fire, and we couldn’t stop it in time, and she died.”

Hollywood can be a dangerous place. You have to keep your head about you, you have to be really careful. This, of course, is why Loki worries about Thor sometimes, who couldn’t be careful if he tried. Fortunately, he’s got more sense himself.

To return to Mercutio though, the part is open. Such a small part, so there is definitely going to be a casting call. Who knows where Thor is, and Pop is so distracted and all. Loki could slip out, he could try out for the part.

One plans for opportunities like these. Loki used to act under his own name when he was a kid, but he always hated that. He’s had his stage name picked out for awhile: Loki Laufeyson. Named after Uncle Laufey, who was the stage actor in the family. The name sounds good, it’ll look good on a marquee, and it tells directors what to expect from Loki. It says he is more of a stage actor, he can probably remember lines unlike a lot of them, which will be helpful, when sound comes in.

The easiest way to get to Asgard would be to have the chauffeur take him in the Hispano Suiza. He would tell Pop, though. He’ll stab you in the back as soon as look at you. Loki takes the streetcar. He brings along the volume from the _ Collected Works _ that has _ Romeo and Juliet _ in it, the better to show the director that he already knows the part.

Another reason why he’s using a pseudonym? Director is not going to want Thor Odinson’s brother in one of the supporting roles. And he’d probably judge Loki by what he’s seen of Thor’s talents, which would just be sad. Thor doesn’t have any talents, he gets by on his looks. Mentally, he rehearses the part on his way over to the trolley stop. “True, I talk of dreams,/ Which are the children of an idle brain,/ Begot of nothing but vain fantasy…” Let this tryout not be vain fantasy! Let Loki have a chance at this, a real chance!

His first adult part: Playing Shakespeare, in a big-budget picture, from one of the biggest studios in town. Mercutio is blond. Loki could play blond. They’ve been darkening Thor’s hair for years. It would be just as easy for them to lighten his.


	4. An Invisible Man, Sleeping In Your Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If there's something strange in your neighborhood  
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters)  
If there's something weird  
And it don't look good  
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters)
> 
> I ain't afraid of no ghost,  
I ain't afraid of no ghost.
> 
> If you're seeing things running through your head  
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters)  
An invisible man  
Sleeping in your bed  
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters)
> 
> I ain't afraid of no ghost,  
I ain't afraid of no ghost.”  
\-- Ray Parker Jr., “Ghostbusters”

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Loki, Thor, Heimdall, Amora** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1981**

We had the door locked. We checked that there was nobody else in the room. Closet, under the bed, behind the fridge, all that happy horseshit. We checked. There was nobody else in there. This was a ghost.

“Of course there’s lots of kinds of ghosts…” Bruce’s words, not mine. “Some of them are just echoes. We have no way of knowing if this one is sentient.”

_ It looked pretty goddamn sentient. _

Bruce thought so too, after we saw it. Here’s what happened from the start: 

First we go to Stark Theatre at 7:00. _ Romeo and Juliet _ , 192, famous for being the last silent Shakespeare production Hollywood made. Year of the _ Jazz Singer_: Why did they make a silent Shakespeare production? Who knows? Who really cares? Movie was boring as fuck. (Of course most silent films are.)

So we go back to the room after that, and we order a pizza, and we wait. And time goes by, and it feels like it’s going really slowly, _ and it is the last time I will ever have, before I realized that I’m haunted. _

_ Me. _ Not my room, _ me. _ Bruce again: “Normally ghosts are tied to a single location…” Normally? Ghosts? _ This is the world I now live in. _ “Normally you can find an item that’s tying the ghost to this plane,” Bruce says, “and then you burn it, and they go on to the Afterlife.”

I’m getting ahead of myself. What happened first, was that it got to be midnight. We shut the curtains, because L.A. is really bright even at night, and we turned off most of the lights, and then we started the tape.

Bruce is asking questions: “Is someone here? Are you trying to tell us something? Do you have a message for someone here?” You ever see a seance on TV? He’s being like that. Unlike on TV though, there are no answers. You know the episode where Lucille Ball pretends to be a ghost on _ I Love Lucy _? Nothing like that. Just Bruce asking questions, and all this dead silence.

But then we watched the tape. 1:00 in the morning then. We should have waited until morning. It would have been awesome to have one more night of real sleep. Now I’m probably never going to be able to sleep again.

Let me do this like a screenplay, okay?

**Scene: A darkened dorm room. Bruce Banner sits on Tony Stark’s bed. He is speaking into space, as though to someone he can’t see.**

**Banner:** “Is someone there? Can you communicate with us?”

**The room remains exactly the same, nothing happening after these first messages.**

**Banner:** “Can you talk to us? Do you want to give us a message?”

_ This is when you see him. _ At first he’s this shadow, really indistinct. He’s over by the door, and as he moves closer, it’s like he grows clearer. _ And Bruce asks more questions. _

**Banner:** “Do you have a message for someone who’s here?”

_ I fucking saw the ghost nod. _ Remember how I told about him the other time? How he was really pale, looked like he was out of the 1920’s? Same guy. White-white face, dark-dark hair, and dark eyes. And he’s still wearing the same olden-days suit, and he stands there, arms at his side. And Bruce asked the question, and he nodded. And he looked at me.

“Introduce yourself Tony,” Bruce says.

I introduced myself. To the ghost.

“Hi,” I say, “I’m Tony Stark.”

The ghost didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.

“Can you talk?” Bruce says. The ghost opened his mouth. It looked like he was trying to talk, but he didn’t.

What Bruce said to me afterward is that it takes psychic power for a ghost to manifest itself... Nobody goes through their life, and thinks they are ever going to be talking about _ psychic energy_, or ghosts _ manifesting _ themselves, or any of that crap. This is my life now though, apparently. Apparently there is something to all this bullshit woo-woo kind of stuff, and I’m going to have to pay attention to it, _because_ _ I have a ghost _.

So Bruce says to me, “It takes a lot of psychic energy for ghost to manifest themselves, and I guess it takes even more for them to talk.”

And I’m like, “Do I want it to talk even?”

I do. All I’ve got to go on is Bruce’s books. They say ghosts usually have a reason they’re staying on this plane (more woo-woo bullshit jargon), and if you take care of the reason, then they go to the Afterlife. So I need to find out what the guy wants, because that’s what’s holding him here. After that he can leave, and I can get back to my normal life.

“How do I get the guy more psychic energy?” I ask Bruce.

He shrugs. “I dunno. Talk to him? I guess? Maybe when he gets to know you, he’ll be able to talk back?”

So that’s my life now: I have to talk to ghosts. _ I have just entered the Twilight Zone. _

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

When you’re a kid, nobody takes you seriously about anything. They look at you, and they don’t see your mind. They don’t see how intelligent you are, or what you’re capable of doing. They look at you, and all they see is A Kid. After that, nothing you say or do matters to them.

Thor was going to give him a chance. It was Loki’s turn to audition. “Loki Laufeyson,” the announcer said, and he went out in front of the camera wearing the blond wig he’d put on before he left home. Thor could have said something then, he could have pointed out that this was his little brother, but he just looked at him, and he kept his mouth shut. He was going to give him a chance.

“He’s too young,” Heimdall said. “Look at him.”

But, “Let him try,” Thor told him. And for what it was worth (which was nothing), Loki tried.

In silent films, it doesn’t matter how well you deliver the lines. The fellow who got the part was a lummox who didn’t catch it when Thor gave him a wrong clue, and then when the prompter gave him the right one, he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. It was horribly embarrassing watching him. He had muscles though, like Thor. And he was tall like Thor, and he had a beard of all things.

“Shave the beard, and the part’s yours Fandral,” Heimdall saud. And that was it for Loki, and Thor having stood up for him? Meant nothing.

Time to go home, one more abortive attempt to make a place for himself in the adult world had failed, why even bother? Do you want to hear what Loki got out of the audition? Do you want to hear _ all _ he got out of that audition? Here it is:

There was a woman there. She was sitting in the chair next to Heimdall’s. There is this type you used to see a lot in pictures, vamps they were called. This lady looked like she’d stepped out of one of a vamp picture, from ten years ago. She had a shiny turban on, and there was so much kohl around her eyes that she looked like a raccoon. A sick raccoon. She had a cigarette in a long holder, and when she’d take it away from her mouth, you could see her red lipstick caked all over it, it was the most disgusting thing you ever saw in your life.

This woman was a poseur of some kind, it was pretty obvious. Either she had been somebody in pictures and now she wasn’t anymore, or else she’d never been anybody, but she’d been trying in the exact-same way, for years, and years, and years, and she never got anywhere. She was a hanger-on. You’d think Heimdall would have had more sense than to even allow a woman like that on his set. But maybe they’re lovers? He’s pretty old, but this woman looked old too. Maybe she reminds him of the good old days, and they’re sleeping together. What a horrible thing to even imagine.

She came up to Loki after the audition, though. This woman, who must have been 40, and who dressed like it was still 1920. “Dot vos so goot daahhhlink,” she said, in this tremendously pretentious fake-European sounding accent. “You hov a real feel for da Bard.” She was just the most tremendous faker, it was embarrassing even being seen with her. At least Heimdall is probably getting sexual gratification out of associating with her, but all Loki got was humiliated, because none of the real movie people were over there talking to him instead.

Anyway, she said that about the Bard (a rather pretentious way of mentioning Shakespeare). Loki said thank you, because what else are you supposed to say when someone gives you a compliment? Even a person like that? And, “Let me geev you my carrrrd,” she said. It was the most terrible thing you ever saw. Green, like poison, and with black writing, the most horrible curlicue script you ever saw, so you practically couldn’t read it. “Amora,” it said, “Director.” And that was all it said.

Fourteen is a child. That is just reality, that’s how everyone sees it. Here is what it is to be a child of fourteen: Inside, you feel like an adult. You know how to do all the things adults do. Loki can act better than Thor. He can read a stage play or a screenplay, and knows exactly how to use either of them. He can read a contract, which is more than even Pop can do, he always has lawyers read Thor’s contracts for him. He can drive a car, and he’s got more sense than to do a lot of the things real adults waste their lives doing, such as drinking or taking narcotics. _ None of that matters. _

Loki is skinny. He’s bony. His nose is too big for his face, and he’s got these big, goofy-looking eyebrows that he’ll probably never grow into. His eyes, which used to be his best feature, now look so small you can barely see them, and no matter how often he washes his hair, it always looks lank and greasy. His feet are too big, and his hands are embarrassing, and no matter how many times he does calisthenics (he does at least as many of them as Thor does), it seems like he’s never going to develop any muscles. He is a child, and he looks like a child, and nobody is ever going to take him seriously.

Correction: Amora, Director takes him seriously. Hooray, Loki has managed to catch the attention of Heimdall’s overaged vamp.


	5. Mad About the Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mad about the boy, it's pretty funny  
But I'm mad about the boy.  
He has a gay appeal that makes me feel  
There's maybe something sad about the boy
> 
> Walking down the street, his eyes look out at me  
From people that I meet.  
I can't believe it's true but when I'm blue  
In some strange way I'm glad about the boy.
> 
> I'm hardly sentimental  
Love isn't so sublime.  
I have to pay my rental  
And I can't afford to waste much time.
> 
> If I could employ a little magic  
That would finally destroy  
This dream that pains me and enchains me,  
But I can't because I'm mad about the boy,  
Mad about the boy.”  
\-- Gertrude Lawrence, “Mad About the Boy”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this one reads sort of clumsy, and I'm sorry about that. It advances the plot the way I want it to go though, and I'm afraid if I hold onto it and edit it forever, I might lose that, so here goes.

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Loki, Amora, Malekith** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1981**

My ghost’s name was Loki Odinson. He was an actor during the silent days. His brother (coincidence) starred in that shitty picture we saw on Saturday. Bruce and I found out the first part of this with a Ouija board we bought at the toy store. I figured out the rest on my own after he left, but I’m pretty goddamn sure it’s true.

First of all, some advice: Unless you want your kid talking to actual ghosts, don’t get him one of those Ouija boards. Those things fucking work. You ever tried one? The thing is, you think it’s going to be your subconscious making the planchette move. It’s not. And it’s not just the other guy fucking with you either. If it had been the Asgard part first, then maybe I would have thought that, but I swear to you, neither of us had ever heard of Loki Odinson before. I know I hadn’t, and Bruce said he never did either.

What happened was we’re using that thing, okay? Middle of the day, because Bruce was leaving at 2:00. We set it up in my room, and we each sit on either side of it. Bruce says, “You talk to it, Tony. You ask it something.”

So, I said, “Are you there?”

Planchette spells out, “YES.” I don’t know if I can describe what it feels like when those things move. You see it on TV, it’s like this really strong motion, and then the guy always says, “You did that,” to his friend, “you made it move.” This wasn’t like that, in fact, you could barely feel it moving at all. But our eyes weren’t closed, so we could see it, and it did move. First it went to the Y, then to the E, and then to the S.

So then I say, “What’s your name?” I cannot describe how much I didn’t want to talk to this ghost.

Planchette spells out the name after that, “LOKI.”

I say, “Loki?” out loud. Like, confirming it.

Before it could answer, Bruce asks another question. “Did you go to this school?” Felt like he was interrupting, but it made sense. We had to rule that out.

“NO,” the planchette spells out, and then, “ASGARD.”

Asgard, we both knew, was the studio that made the silent _ Romeo and Juliet _ with Thor Odinson. So then we both wanted to know more, but the ghost wouldn’t say any more. I think Bruce would have stayed then if he could, because I mean shit, he had to have been curious. We would have gone to the bookstore together, we both wanted to find out if there had ever been a Loki associated with Asgard Studios, one who had died, etcetera. Bruce had a bus to catch though, he had to get back to his own dorm and do some stuff for classes on Monday. So he left, and I went over to the B. Dalton by myself.

I found this book: _ Mysterious Hollywood Deaths_. I bought it, even though it was pretty easy to find the information I wanted, and I didn’t have to. I figure I’m going to have to talk to Loki some more, and it will come in useful. Bruce says if you can find out what a ghost wants, and give it to them, that’s how you make them leave. Stands to reason nobody wants a ghost haunting them forever, right? So I’ll show Loki the part about him in the book, to maybe find out a little faster what he wants.

What the book said by the way? Loki was a child actor, brother to a pretty major star, Thor Odinson. Loki was found dead on the grounds of Asgard Studios, in February, 1927. He was only fourteen years old.

Honest to god, that really brings it home, doesn’t it? He was younger than me, and he died. Book said there were rumors it was murder. Somebody killed this kid, who was younger than me. How do you go from being the brother of a star, to being dead, just lying there on the ground at some movie studio, on a cold day in February? It said they never found out who killed him. I wonder if he’s back to seek revenge on whoever did it, or why he’s here? Maybe he just wants the life he didn’t get back then? Poor kid.

So I went to my room, and I was going to do the Ouija board then, only I fell asleep pretty much as soon as I got back. So, breakfast this morning, I’m eating one-handed and writing down everything from yesterday at the same time. Ham-and-mushroom omelette, tons of coffee, after I finish eating, I’ll go talk to the ghost again. I’ll talk to _ Loki_. I’ll show him the book, if it won’t weird him out too much. I will at least ask him all the questions I have. I have lots of questions.

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

Amora is actually someone important. She had a picture out in 1924, that made quite a profit. She’s still on-contract with Asgard, to do two more. There is a life-lesson here: One should never judge someone just by what they look like. Considering what even some of the major names here in Hollywood go about looking like, Loki should have known better.

After finding out though, of course there was no question of his not going, when she invited him to her house for a party. Her house…

The same sorts of inimical judgments would immediately come to anyone’s mind when they saw that house. It was the ugliest monstrosity of faux-Moorish architecture one could possibly imagine, with horrible plaster copies of Egyptian statues all around the pool (floodlit, of course), and naturally, dark draperies of dusty velvet everywhere inside, and all these embroidered pillows and hookahs and things, like something out of 1915. Hideous. Who would possibly want to live there?

Amora was reclining (of course) on a velvet couch (!!!). Her breasts were uncovered, and it looked like she’d rouged the tips, and her hair was this frizzy bleached-blonde cloud around her face, like Alla Nazimova. “Dollink!” she yelled as soon as she saw Loki come in, “Come right over here at once,” and he came. She was drinking this greenish drink that was probably absinthe. It was illegal, of course, even before Prohibition, but it’s exactly the kind of thing that she would be sure and find somewhere, and drink it, just to be as decadent as possible.

The whole party was just like her. It was just gaudy, and a little out-of-date, and terribly, terribly decadent. At first after he arrived, Loki would have said that there was no one here except raddled, addled-looking women like Amora, and a bunch of slave-boys wearing not very much clothing. The longer he stayed, the more people of real importance he saw there, though. Valentino was there, with his director, Madame Rambova, and Noel Coward (!!!), with Getrude Lawrence of all people, and another stage star, Tallulah Bankhead.

Malekith was there. He was talking to Amora along with Charlie Chaplin (!!!), and when she waved Loki over she introduced him to both of them. “Zees is my latest discovery, dollinks.” Loki was sitting next to her when she said it. She had her arm around his shoulder, and her hand was on his chest like he belonged to her. It was rather uncomfortable, not to mention the smell, which was absinthe, and strong-strong perfume, and something like bad breath. Still, who wouldn’t have been flattered? “He eez my latest discovery, Loki,” she says.

“Oh,” Chaplin says, “someone else is robbing the cradle too I see.” (Chaplin is notorious, of course, for marrying a whole bunch of underaged girls.)

But Amora just laughed. “Loki?” she said. “Pfft, he is nearly an adult.”

Does she really think that, or was it part of the flattery? Because she was flattering Loki, pretty much all night long. She was flattering him like he was a star, it’s exactly how everyone always treats Thor,whenever they want something from him. If anything came close to turning his head last night, it wasn’t anything Amora said, or even meeting all the important people, it was the flattery.

“Loki is nearly an adult,” Amora says, “it’s past time for him to be treated like one. I am going to make a brilliant picture with him. What do you think, my friends? Shakespeare? Would Shakespeare be good? I am going to make the first Shakespeare film, with sound, and Loki is going to star in it. _ Wait _ until you hear him declaim!”

And nothing would do but that he should declaim (the “winter of our discontent” speech, because he knows it by heart), and the reaction! They couldn’t all have been flattering him, could they? Because it wasn’t just Malekith and Chaplin that were listening, all of them were, and they all said such wonderful things, it was all Loki could do to keep his head from being turned.

“You can have him first Amora,” Malekith said, “and I’ll have him second…” (Malekith, for those who haven’t heard of him, is one of the more important current actors of villain roles.) “Othello, to my Iago,” he said, “or wait… Hamlet to my Claudius, what do you say, Loki?”

What could one say? (Although Malekith did seem a little drunk at this point.)

And Noel Coward (!!!) said, “I will write a revue just for him. One look at him inspires me. -- Loki, come here.” Not just Mr. Coward, but also Miss Lawrence and Miss Bankead, made so much over Loki then, and petted him and flattered him like nobody’s business. Amora seemed quite put out with them, and finally called him back to her side.

Is this what being a star is? Is this what it’s like for Thor, all the time? It’s all these predatory people, you know they want you for their own purposes. Here is what it is, being a star: _ Their purpose is your purpose. _ If Amora really makes her Shakespeare film, with sound, and Loki really stars in it, that will help both of them. A film like that could be the making of a man’s career, and of course she needs to continue making successful films, or else her career will go right straight down the drain.

For a change, it was Loki coming in after curfew last night. Thor was already in bed (because of having to be at the studio early the next morning), and it was only Geri and Freki that Loki had to worry about. He’d made sure to stay sober, despite all the people that were offering him absinthe and cocktails all night long, especially so he could get past them. When they woke up and wanted to bark, he just hushed them, and gave them each some dog biscuits, and then he went on up to his room.

Imagine being a star. It can’t possibly be real, can it? But Amora wants him for a screen test next week, a screen test _ with sound_. They’re going to practice the part all week first, to be sure it goes well. “Come visit me tomorrow, Loki dollink,” Amora said. Loki Dollink is definitely going to visit her tomorrow.


	6. Let Nobody Blame Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,  
Sing all a green willow.  
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,  
Sing willow, willow, willow.  
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans.  
Sing willow, willow, willow.  
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones.  
Sing willow, willow, willow.  
Lay by these.--  
Sing willow, willow, willow…  
Sing all a green willow must be my garland.  
Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve,-”  
\-- Shakespeare, “The Willow Song,” from Othello

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Loki, Amora** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1981**

I was going to ask Loki about how he died, etcetera. Instead I found myself asking him why he kissed me that one night. I didn’t get an answer.

This is what I got: “HELP ME. TONY HELP ME. HELP ME TONY.” Over and over again, just those three words. So I pursued it, not sure why. “LOUSY OUIJA BOARD,” Loki spelled out. “HARD. SLOW.” Then (remember, he’s just fourteen)... Then it was like the planchette was getting picked up. Not me doing it, but Loki. Like he picked it up, threw it against the opposite wall. Crack, it went. Turns out you can break those Milton Bradley planchettes, if you throw them hard enough.

That was when I knew I had to find another way of talking to Loki. Ouija board is like taking the long way around, to get basically nowhere. You get about three words. No one could communicate with just three words. So I go back to the B. Dalton and I browse the Spiritualist section. Which was disturbingly huge, by the way. Lots of books about ghosts and hauntings, which I may come back to later, if I need to, as well as the usual suspects, all the standard, cliched New Age shit about chakras and your Third Eye, etcetera.

I find this book called _ Automatic Writing_, which looked useful. Ghosts can’t talk very well, apparently. It takes a lot of psychic energy, some of them can say a few phrases, some of them can’t even do that. But if you just open your mind and let them, they will use your hand and write, and answer all your questions. Does it sound creepy to let a ghost use your mind like that? Loki’s just a kid I thought, what could possibly go wrong?

So I go home with the book, and I read the relevant portions. Then I take a pencil and paper, and I turn the lights low (not sure why that was necessary, but the book said to do it). Then I start asking questions. It was ...interesting is what it was, not bad, not really, but ..._ interesting_.

First of all, I _ know _ it was Loki talking to me. How do I know, you may ask? Loki doesn’t talk like me. He talks olden days. Does that make sense? Like a picture from a late night movie, he talks like that, if you know what I mean? Like, he didn’t say “Twenty-three skidoo,” but he came close, see? Like, no swearing, and all the slang was wrong, and he notices funny things that you or I wouldn’t even see about the modern world. That’s what he’s like.

I didn’t learn very much about his past, but I did learn how he feels about the modern world. And some about what he wants. But I’m going to need to learn more about that. ...I guess I will.

“How did you die, Loki?” I don’t write it you understand, I just ask it out loud, and then Loki writes his answer.

The answer to that one was useless: “I won’t talk about that,” Loki said. “Ask something else, Tony.”

So then I asked what I asked before: “Why did you kiss me that night?”

Loki didn’t answer that one either. “I want your help,” he said instead.

Does it sound like he wasn’t being much help to me? I guess. Are ghosts supposed to help you, though? Why? They’re people, people don’t always help you. In fact, if you pay attention, most of them never do. They just do your own shit, and you do your shit, like parallel tracks. Every now and then you connect, and usually it’s not how you expected.

I start getting better results though, when I just start talking to Loki. “What was the Olden Days like?” I ask him.

“Better,” he said then. “It was better.”

And I say, “Yeah? How?”

“Your world is lousy,” he says. “Rotten, stinky world. My world was better. I was going to be a star.”

I knew that part already, because of the book. “You wanted to be an actor like your brother?” I say.

“NOT LIKE THOR,” he writes, so hard it broke the point on the pencil, but he just goes on, like scrapings, that were nearly impossible to read. I finally had to break off the session and turn the lights on, so I could read it. “Thor is just a pretty face,” he said, “no talent, no intellect, can’t even read lines. **I WAS GOING TO BE A STAR, I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A STAR, ** ** _I WILL BE A STAR._**”

Most of that, I understand. It was a tantrum, everyone has tantrums, especially at his age. That last part though? I don’t like the last part. How can a ghost be a star?

Possession: noun. (definition by Merriam Webster)

3 a: domination by something (such as an evil spirit, a passion, or an idea)

b: a psychological state in which an individual's normal personality is replaced by another

I don’t like those, but there’s another one I really don’t like: “control or occupancy of property without regard to ownership.” I could be okay with Loki dominating me or, you know, with his personality replacing mine just for a little while? If he occupied my body without regard for ownership, would he ever give it back?

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

There is a term called the “casting couch.” Pop talks about it sometimes. “Oh, she has no talent, she only got the part because of the casting couch,” he’ll say. (Once when he didn’t think Thor or Loki was around, he added, “All her talent is between her legs.”) This makes it sound like a pejorative, but it doesn’t have to be one, not entirely. Plenty of people who are talented are still forced to go through this degradation. Women mostly, but not only women. They say Valentino owed his first starring role to the casting couch.

Here is what one must do (it is probably easier for a woman.): It’s not enough to ignore physicality. One must pretend, too. The pretense is probably the most difficult part, but without it? One’s benefactor doesn’t want to think you’re forcing yourself. You have to seem like you’re having a good time.

<strike>Amora’s bedchamber had animal skins on the bed (of course it did). Tiger, leopard, panther, it had all these unpleasant, molting skins all over the place on there. The skins smelled bad, and the furs were prickly. And there was a canopy over the bed, purple, embroidered with gold. The designs on it were those kind that keep seeming like they’re going to shape themselves into pictures, but they never do. The whole room smelled like garlic and incense, and there was this underlying damp smell. That was the one that felt like you’d have to wash yourself forever to get it out of your hair.</strike>

Filming a scene with sound is a difficult process. Some parts of the difficulty are expected, others are not. It stood to reason that there would have to be something done about the camera noise. Anyone who has ever been on the set of a motion picture would know that this would be a problem. The solution one uses apparently, is to put the camera inside of a large cabinet. This makes it somewhat immobile. “There will have to be more cameras,” Amora told Loki when she was explaining the process. I consider it a challenge. I _ love _ challenges.”

Another challenge is that one must remain close enough to the microphone for it to pick up the dialogue. This creates a certain immobility. If you’ve ever watched a radio broadcast being made, you’ll know what this would look like. Actually, the comparison with radio broadcasts is an apt one.

“Sound is an expensive process, Loki dollink…” This was Amora, talking to Loki <strike>after they had</strike> After what happened, this was what she said to him. “It is a very expensive process, we must make the most of it.” And she explained, “Naturally I think it is the technology of the future…” (“_Zee _ technology off _ zee _ future;” at a certain point in their conversation, she gave up using as much of her pretend accent, but she always used some of it, as if it’s natural to her now at this point.) “I sink off it as zee technology off zee future, Loki, but theatre owners are unconvinced. Zey see it ass a novelty.”

What she meant was if there is going to be sound in a film, there must be lots of sound (because “Zey must get zeir money’s worth”). In terms of Shakespeare, this means singing. Loki spent the entire second half of the afternoon standing in front of a microphone just like Bing Crosby, singing Shakespearean-era songs while Amora cranked away at the camera inside its large case.

He sang all the songs Shakespeare ever wrote, every last one of them, whether they made sense or not. Some of the songs are sung by male characters, albeit, minor characters for the most part, but the Willow Song from _ Othello _ is sung by a woman, Desdemona. Not that Loki pointed this out, it wouldn’t have been appropriate during what was still after all, an audition. It must have shown on his face though, and Amora just waved it away as if it were nothing.

“But it is a good song Loki dollink,” she said, “and you sound so good singing it.”

Loki sang quite a lot of other ballads too, that afternoon, and Amora recorded all of them. And he recited several soliloquies as well. That was the easy part of the afternoon; we will not talk about the difficult part.

<strike>Thor never had to go through this, naturally. Thor is too good-looking for him to ever have had to prove himself in other ways. It’s unfair, it’s demeaning and humiliating, and Amora’s body is wrinkled and unattractive. If there is a part in it though… _ If there is a part in it_…</strike>

<strike>Pop can never know any of this. Nor Thor, nor any of them. Can you imagine what Mama would say?</strike>

“Vill you stay and watch the rushes with me Loki dollink?” Amora asked after they were done for the day, referring to the usual director’s practice of watching all the film that was recorded over the course of the day. Loki said no thanks. This may or may not have been a wise choice on his part. On the one hand, perhaps he sounds really good singing on film. It would have been nice to know that, sort of a pleasant little secret that he could have carried home with himself at the end of the long day. On the other hand though, there’s that bed with all the animal skins on it, in Amora’s bedroom. What if she had plans for using that bed some more...


	7. The Secrets That You Keep...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When I hold you in my arms at night,  
Don't you know you're sleeping in a spotlight.  
And all your dreams that you keep inside,  
You're telling me the secrets that you just can't hide.
> 
> You tell me that you want me,  
You tell me that you need me,  
You tell me that you love me,  
And I know that I'm right,  
Cuz I hear it in the night.  
I hear the secrets that you keep,  
When you're talking in your sleep.”  
\-- The Romantics, “Talking in Your Sleep”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original draft of this, I have Skurge being the Odinsons' chauffeur. I'm removing that and putting him here, so Amora can have the creepy assistant she needs.

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Loki, Amora, Skurge** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1981**

The star thing, that was what was holding Loki to this plane, I figured. That was his unfinished business. Unfinished business is another of the things those psychic woo-woo books are always talking about. I am starting to get quite a collection of psychic woo-woo books. Necessary equipment I guess, when you have a ghost.

But anyway: If you’ve been reading my story so far, you know that the first time I tried automatic writing, the thing Loki kept going on and on about was, “I was supposed to be a star, I wanted to be a star, I _ will _ be a star,” etcetera. And I mean, delusional, how the fuck is a ghost going to be a star, he’s just not, but still, if I could make it happen? If I could somehow work it so he got a little of the fame he wanted when he was alive?

<strike> It would be terrible if Loki read this, but get real Tony Stark, how could he? But if he could, I wouldn’t want him to. You want to know what was going through my mind at first? I had this idea, I thought what if I could fake it so he just thought he was getting the fame. Gaslighting that’s called, from a 1944 film starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer (when you’ve got a Hollywood ghost, you also start to accumulate a lot of movie history books). Gaslighting is when you play with peoples’ minds, to make them think something fake is real. You can do it to try and drive them crazy, I would just be doing it so I could drive Loki over to the other side (AKA, the Great Beyond). I threw that idea away fairly quickly, because come on, it would be a dick move. What a shitty thing to do, to fuck with a kid’s mind, even a ghost-kid’s, just so you could get rid of him. But I did think about it. </strike>

After that though, what I was thinking about was getting into the psychic woo-woo book business. Or perhaps a movie? One of those _ In Search Of/Legend of Bigfoot _ kinds of things, you know what I’m talking about? I am, after all, a filmmaker (or I have a camera anyway, what more do you need?). It would of course, be nothing but pure exploitation, but Roger Corman made a fortune that way, didn’t he? And what if I could solve the mystery of who killed Loki back in 1927? This might actually work out really well for both of us.

So I went back to Loki, AKA, another automatic writing session. No questions this time. He was so intense the last time, I figured this time we could just talk for awhile, maybe cool him down a little. This is what I got:

“Tell me about when you were an actor Loki,” I say.

“Child actor,” comes the answer right away. “Pop’s idea. Not important.”

So I’m just trying to get all the information I can. “Pop?” I say.

“Odin von Borsen. Do some research Tony,” he says. “You have books. Read them.”

<strike> You remember when I said that I don’t want him to know I was thinking about gaslighting him? This was at this point I realized: I’m going to have to hide this manuscript. </strike>

“How do you know I have the books?” I ask, because I was startled.

“Please,” he says. “I’m dead, not stupid.”

<strike> The joke tells you something else you should know about Loki: He’s terrifying in some ways, but he’s also weirdly likeable. Which may turn out to be a problem. Not saying it definitely will be, but still… </strike>

“Yeah,” I say, “and you were in the room.”

“When you were asleep,” Loki goes on, still being likeable. “And I kissed you. I’m sorry about that, Tony. I’m not used to doing this,” he says. “I’m not used to being a ghost.”

“But you’re here because you want to be a star, right?” I say. “I mean, that’s why you haven’t moved on?”

“I don’t know what ‘moved on’ means,” he says. “Forgive me, but I’ve never studied ghosts, like certain people.”

“I just mean it’s your unfinished business,” I say. “Because I can help you.”

“Of course you can,” Loki says. “That’s why I can to you in the first place. What do you want in return for helping me, Tony?”

I should have told the kid I wanted him out of my life. I should have told him right then. I mean, Jesus, it makes sense, doesn’t it? He’s a ghost, ghosts don’t belong on this plane. He should be in the Afterlife, which for all we know, might be really wonderful. Who knows what he’s missing by not being there? But he definitely can’t stick around here forever, haunting me, and I should have said this to him, I should have explained that if we can finish his unfinished business, that gives both of us what we want. Only I didn’t. Because he was a person to me by then, see? As well as a ghost? You can’t look somebody in the face and say, “I want you gone.” I defy you.

“What do I _ want _?” I say instead.

“Like the kiss,” he says, “from before. Is that the kind of thing you like, Tony?”

I’ve mentioned the gay thing once before, I think. I never expected Loki to bring it up all out of the blue like he did. “You mean am I gay?” It just slips out without me even thinking about it. “Are you?”

Loki’s answer was weird: “An actor can be whatever he needs to be, Tony.”

I stopped the conversation after that. Loki’s right, I do need to do some more research. I need to read up about his “Pop,” and about his brother Thor. And I need to find out if he was gay when he was alive. Not that I would be interested in a ghost. For one thing, I’m not gay (go back and reread: _ I’ve fucked girls _), and more importantly, how would that even work? No offense Loki, you don’t have any genitals anymore. But if we’re going to talk about it, I should know. I want to be sensitive with him.

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

_ As You Like It _ is a good play. Rosalind is a good part. (It’s a girl’s part. Dammit.)

This was always too good to be true, and any fool would have known it. Sometimes it feels like the world is right, Loki really is just a child and incapable of understanding the adult world. (Sometimes the condescension just gets to be overwhelming. Dammit.)

“Loki dollink, just _ try _ the costume,” Amora said. She was right. Loki tried it, and she was right. “You vill do it under an assumed name,” she said. “Everyone will know about it, but on the down-low Loki dollink, if you know what I mean? It vill give you _ éclat _.”

_ Éclat _ is a French word, meaning social distinction. It means having people talking about you. Lord, what will people be saying, once it gets around that Loki’s played a girl? There was an article that made the rounds recently about Rudolph Valentino. Something to the effect of how Valentino isn’t a real man, he’s beautiful gardener’s boy, who wears powder and lacy underpants. “Do women like the type of ‘man,’” it said, “who pats pink powder on his face in a public washroom and arranges his coiffure in a public elevator?” Valentino never played a girl’s part in a film. _ Rosalind falls in love with a man, and they end up flirting all through the play. _

“But Loki dollink, you vill grow into men’s roles,” Amora said, which was never what she said before, because if it had been… “And your Shakespearean delivery is flawless. You vill be my perfect Rosalind.”

Loki was, too. She gave him the costume to try on. This wasn’t the tights-outfit she wears for most of the play, when she’s pretending to be Ganymede. He tried that one on as well later on, and it was alright. He looked <strike> almost </strike> like a man in that one. This was the first one: Curls, and a Pre Raphaelite-looking gown. What do you say about yourself, when you look at your reflection, and you see a girl looking back at you? What is there that you can say?

“It was that wonderful blond wig that you wore for the audition,” Amora says. (That _ vonderful _ blond _ vig _.) “I vasn’t sure, you are so dark-complected naturally, but look at yourself! Loki, vasn’t I right?” And she called her assistant Skurge in. “Skurge, look! It is our Rosalind!”

A part like this could never be an asset to anyone’s career. Nobody wants to be a pink powder puff, even Valentino didn’t want that. And Loki explained that, and at first Amora was just going on and on about how it would be “on the down-low,” and “oh, the _ éclat _,” and this and that. And finally it began to sink in that this isn’t the kind of fame a man wants. Then Skurge said, “You will be paid.”

Amora can offer a fairly decent salary. Not star’s wages unfortunately, but still… Thor pays Loki’s pocket money right now. He supports the entire household, although Pop has some sort of pretense he uses, about being Thor’s “manager.” Having some money of one’s own gives a fellow a certain freedom. This was when Loki started to reconsider the idea.

“Can we keep who I am a secret?” he said.

“Oh of course,” Amora said right away like she was lying, so Loki pushed on.

“Can we really keep it a secret?”

And Amora gave in. “Of course Loki dollink, the deepest, darkest of secrets. Ve vill give you a new name,” she said. “Not Loki, but Lorinda. Lorinda Laufeyson.”

There are some positive and some negative aspects to this solution: On the one hand, Lorinda is a lot like Loki. A new stage name is going to be necessary. Perhaps he can just go back to Loki Odinson? Perhaps, when Thor’s career inevitably fails, after sound becomes widespread? That shouldn’t be too much longer, should it? Thor is never going to survive the introduction of sound.

“If you really keep it a secret,” Loki said.

And Amora said, “Oh Lorinda dollink, you haf made me the happiest director in all Hollywood!”

After that, Skurge ran lines with Loki for the rest of the afternoon. He did some other things too, but those don’t bear discussion. <strike>“It is the costume,” Amora said, “it gifs me ideas. Come here, Skurge.”</strike>

<strike> Skurge came there. He’s very large (his genitalia, that is, his _ piece _ ). And Loki was still in the Rosalind dress, Amora told him to lift up the skirts (he wasn’t wearing any underwear underneath). “But Madam,” Skurge said, “he is a virgin.” </strike>

<strike> “Not that way, idiot,” she told him. “Do we want to hurt our little Lorinda? _Between the thighs_.” </strike>

Money makes a lot of things <strike>tolerable</strike> better. It can buy so much.

“Von’t it be funny, Loki dollink,” Amora said toward the end of the afternoon, “if Lorinda becomes a star?”

That won’t matter. Lorinda can only last so long anyhow. Soon Loki will have grown into full maturity, and he won’t be able to pass as a girl anymore. Then he’ll play parts under his own name.


	8. Pictures Came and Broke Your Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I heard you on the wireless back in fifty two,  
Lying awake, intent at tuning in on you.  
If I was young it didn't stop you coming through,  
Oh, ahh, oh,
> 
> They took the credit for your second symphony,  
Rewritten by machine on new technology,  
And now I understand the problems you can see  
Oh, ahh, oh,
> 
> I met your children,  
Oh, ahh, oh,  
What did you tell them?
> 
> Video killed the radio star,  
Video killed the radio star,  
In my mind and in my car,  
We can't rewind we've gone too far,  
Oh, ahh, ahh, ahh, oh,  
Oh, ahh, ahh, ahh, oh,
> 
> Video killed the radio star,  
Video killed the radio star,  
In my mind and in my car,  
We can't rewind we've gone too far.  
Pictures came and broke your heart,  
Put the blame on VCR.”  
\-- The Buggles, “Video Killed the Radio Star”

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****   
**Characters: Tony Stark, Loki, Amora, Skurge, Thor** **   
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1981**

Research: Book called  _ Stars of the Silent Age - Where are They Now? _ Not what you’d call the most up-to-date source, it was published in 1965, but it was the best I could do. Book has a chapter about Thor. He’s a pretty interesting person (I think he’s still alive). Thor’s movie career went into the toilet after sound came in which Loki’s talked about that. After that he became a producer, movies first, TV later…

Here’s the thing, is it just gets really, really depressing.  _ Because Thor has this whole life _ . Because as near as I can tell, he is still alive. That makes him somewhere in his 70’s now. He’s had this whole career, first he was an actor, which as near as I can tell, was sort of his father’s idea, but then after that crapped out he went on and did something else that maybe he liked better. And he was good at it, you would not believe some of the TV shows he’s been involved with, it would give me writer’s cramp to put down all the names. All these live adventure kind of shows, the ones that are filmed on location, and  _ Where Are They Now _ had these pictures, Thor in a pith helmet, Thor wearing ski clothes, Thor in the middle of the ocean. And I don’t know, maybe he’s retired now, or maybe he’s still working, a lot of guys still are in their 70’s, if they like what they’re doing. I tried to find an obituary for him, and I couldn’t, so I guess he’s still alive. 

Loki didn’t have any kind of a life at all though. He died, he was still just fourteen years old. I mean, I knew it was tragic, but that really brought it home, and I’ll be talking to Loki now… -- He’s around kind of a lot, just bops in and out whenever he pleases. -- ...I’ll be talking to him, and maybe he’s being kind of a brat, which he does a lot. Hard to hold it against him, I think about his brother, and how he had this whole exciting life, maybe he’s still having it. “Oh, I am the expert on this,” Loki will say or, “Oh Tony, you are doing that exactly wrong.” Yeah Loki, yeah, you tell me about how it’s supposed to be done, have a good time. Poor kid, he’s got to get some fun out of life (afterlife, I mean).

Anyway, here’s something fun: I’ve been watching TV with Loki. Which started out like most things start with him, he was being all snooty, and wanting what he wanted, right now, etcetera. It was the day I was at the library trying to find out if his brother had died, which if you’ve ever gone through newspaper files on microfilm? It’s impossible to find anything. One reel of film will be like a whole year, and you have to scroll through… Never mind, you don’t want to hear about that. Anyway though, they’d stopped serving dinner by the time I got back to the dorm, and I ordered a pizza, all I wanted to do was just veg for awhile and then go to sleep. Me, with a slice of Dr. Munchy’s in my hand, dumbest of all possible dumb TV shows going on the tube, and then… It was weird.

It’s getting so I can feel Loki, now he’s been around here for awhile. I felt him that night. It was sort of an impatient kind of feeling. And Loki can’t talk, which bugs him by the way, he’s told me that. When I felt him being impatient, I took pity, and I grabbed a pencil and a notebook. “What do you want, Loki?” I said.

Right away Loki starts writing, “The black box on your desk,” he says, “that’s a television, isn’t it?”

“You know about television?” I go, all surprised and shit. Looked it up later: TV was invented, it turns out, the same year Loki died. So many things are older than you think they are.

But Loki’s all real Loki-ish and shit like he usually is (the poor kid). “Oh of course I do,” he says, “I am in the business and all.”

“Yeah,” I say, “that’s television. You want to watch it with me.”

And Loki’s like, “Yeah, okay. It won’t help me go to the Afterlife you know.”

I’m like, “Fine, I don’t care, we’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

Watching TV with Loki, you notice all this stuff that you don’t usually think about. Because it’s all new to him, you know? It’s like he goes to sleep one day (AKA, he  _ dies _ ), Technicolor is like this rare thing that’s used just for a few movies, and as for sound? He told me about the old sound technology, apparently they had to use these extra-big cameras, and they had to stay in one place, and all this other shit. Then one day he wakes up, there are these boxes in everybody’s houses, these TV boxes, well it’s understandable he’d be excited.

We were watching TV one time, and a boom mike came into the shot. Loki loved that. He also loved it when I showed him the vacuum tubes in the back of my TV set, and when I demonstrated my videocam. All the tech side of it practically makes him piss his pants (if he still had pants), but he really hates modern television. He says it’s trivial and sex-obsessed. In a way, he kind of has a point.

Loki’s Loki, okay? He was just a kid when he died, and he thinks like a kid, you know what I mean? He’s always judgmental, and he thinks he knows everything. And he comes from the Olden Days, when things were a lot more straitlaced than now, so naturally modern TV is going to offend him. But partly he does have a point. We have all this tech nowadays. Why don’t we do more good stuff with it? Why isn’t TV better?

I told him about my plans for making a movie with him. I didn’t mean to, it just slipped out.  _ In Search Of _ was on. You know, the show that’s always about extraterrestrials and shit like that? It was an episode about ghosts. “That’s so obviously fake,” Loki says, “and none of those hosts believe anything they’re saying.”

“A show with a real ghost though,” I say, “or maybe a movie…”

“That’s not what you’re planning to do with me, is it?” Loki writes right away.

What was I supposed to say to that? “It would make you famous anyway,” I say. “It would make you a star.”

Loki was really silent then after that, for a very long time. And then he wrote, “I’d look like a monster. I guess I am a monster.” Then he was silent for a long time again.

I was feeling like shit for saying it, and of course it’s not going to do. I can’t show this kid as a monster in front of the whole world. But if I don’t, how am I going to make a star out of him? How do you make a star out of a ghost?

To cheer him up, I changed channels, and we watched cartoons for the rest of the evening. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. That’s one thing we both can agree on anyway. And then Loki went to wherever he goes, and I went to bed. Took me forever to get to sleep that night, though, because yeah. I kind of feel like I owe the kid something, only what? It’s not even about sending him on to the Afterlife anymore, it’s gone beyond that. He missed so much, dying when he was still so young and shit, and it makes me want to make it up to him somehow. But how would I do that? It’s not like I can give him the life he never had. And being Loki, he’s not going to tell me. I have to figure it out on my own.

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

Someday there will be a world where a man can play a part like Rosalind, and go on to have a career playing real men’s parts. This is coming, it is, just like sound. No one thinks worse of John Barrymore for playing Mr. Hyde, do they? Even though it’s a monster role? Someday playing a woman is going to be just like that, just a part one plays, and then one goes on to play whatever. It should be like that, Rosalind is one of the best roles Shakespeare ever wrote.

That is not today’s world though. It really isn’t. Today one must keep things like that hushed up. There is so much that one must keep hushed up. That’s the key to success in Hollywood. There are so many people who do so many things. What makes one of them successful and another one not?  _ It’s all about if they can keep the illicit stuff a secret. _

Skurge: “She wants you to be her protegee, Loki. She is a brilliant director,” he keeps saying.

And Amora: “Loki dollink, why do you care what Main Street thinks about you?” she’ll ask.

Who buys movie tickets, except Main Street? Does she really think her Noel Cowards and Rudolph Valentinos are enough to sell a motion picture?

Those friends of hers: They go around doing everything in public, and they don’t care who knows about any of it. How can they do that? Why do they do that? Don’t they care how it makes them look?

Amora finished casting the picture in August. It’s almost October now. Loki hasn’t been to school once. This is one of so many things that Pop had better not find out about. Thor’s alright, he’s been really busy too, with  _ Romeo and Juliet _ . Pop’s the problem though, and Mama. No matter how busy they are, they always seem to have time to pry. A few weeks ago, for instance, when Mama found the sheets with the blood on them. They were at the bottom of the laundry hamper, how did she find them? Loki had to make up a story quick, and he told her he’d had a nosebleed, although he would have had to be sleeping pretty funny for his nose to bleed there. Or there was the six-week report from school. Fortunately Loki got that out of the mail before Pop could see it.

Making a film like  _ As You Like It _ is everything. Even though Loki can never put his name on it, and to the world, it’ll always have to be “Lorinda” who played Rosalind, it’s… Well, it’s completely different from playing children’s roles, it’s… Well, it’s different.

Thor’s been playing adult roles since he was sixteen. This is like that. Pop bosses Thor some, because he’s his manager, just like Amora bosses Loki. “Dye your hair Thor, your roots show, and get it cut,” or in this case, “don’t get it cut, you’re playing Romeo, remember?” Thor’s opinions don’t matter, but who cares?  _ Because the movie matters. _ Thor likes his blond hair, but everyone knows blond hair doesn’t photograph well, who cares?  _ Thor he has power. _ He has money, and people respect him. Now they’re starting to respect Loki as well.

Last house-party Amora had, she showed some of the footage from  _ As You Like It _ . She showed the part at the Duke’s palace, where Rosalind and Orlando fall in love. Afterwards…

Everyone was silent for a long time. Skurge shut off the film, and he turned the lights back on, and still no one had spoken. And then when they did start talking again they were talking about Loki. About Lorinda at any rate, which is the same thing. Jesus. Who could possibly not want people reacting like that about them?

After that the conversation was all about “Oh, Lorinda, your pretty Lorinda, your smart Lorinda, your talented Lorinda.”  _ Her _ Lorinda. If only they knew? Someday that talk will be about smart Loki, talented Loki, handsome Loki. Just knowing he can create those reactions has to be enough. And the money of course. Even though he’s got to bank all of that, because if he spent it, Pop would find out what he’s been doing.

After that party, some things happened of course. Some things always happen, Amora must have her pound of flesh. Those things get less difficult over time though, they’re part of what one goes through to become a star. Things like that don’t matter as much when you can see yourself up onscreen, and you know you’re doing a good job. You can see you’re doing better than Thor. Maybe his name is up there in lights when his movies open, and your marquee is going to say Lorinda, but that’s your face. That’s your voice, saying those things. That’s your brain that worked out how to stay close enough to the microphone while Rosalind was talking to Celia and Orlando, and then move away convincingly, when the dialogue was over. Those things matter, no one can take them away from you, and no amount of  <strike> pain </strike> shame can ever erase them. And someday everything will be worth it. Someday that marquee will read Loki Laufeyson.

They were talking about putting dialogue into  _ Romeo _ . Pop put the brakes on that though, Thor said. Funny conversation, Thor’s an interesting guy. He understands stuff sometimes, more than you’d think he would (even though other stuff, he doesn’t understand at all). 

“Pop said it would kill the international market,” he says. “I guess I’m pretty big in Germany these days.”

Loki made the usual kind of joke, “Oh, you’re big everywhere Thor,” something like that.

Thor understands stuff though, it’s really surprising. “Good thing for me he did put the brakes on,” he says. “Can you imagine me reading lines Loki? I’d be terrible at it. Too bad it couldn’t be me moving my mouth, and then they dub your voice in, you’re good at that stuff. But I guess you’re going to want a career of your own pretty soon, aren’t you? Once you grow into that goofy baby-face of yours.”

He has to joke of course, he always does. But he understands. His career is going to be over when sound comes in, and he knows it. And he knows Loki’s talented. Did he ever admit that before?

“Maybe someday I’ll be your manager,” he says, “when Pop retires. We can be a team. I think we’d be pretty unstoppable.”

Maybe that would work. Thor would make a pretty good manager, and he wouldn’t be bossy like Pop. Maybe he’ll forget though, or get busy with other things. Maybe he’ll drive that roadster of his off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean some night, or who knows, maybe Loki will die. Things like that happen. So many dreams just never come true.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There is the sun and moon,  
Facing their old, sweet tune.  
Watch them when dawn is due,  
Sharing one space.
> 
> Some walk by night,  
Some fly by day,  
Something is sweeter  
When you meet 'long the way.
> 
> So come walk the night,  
Come fly by day,  
Something is sweeter  
'Cause we met 'long the way.”  
\-- Al Jarreau, Theme from Moonlighting

**[Fandom: MCU -- Ghost Story AU** ****  
**Characters: Tony Stark, Bruce, Loki, Thor, Odin, Frigga, Amora, Skurge** **  
** **Author’s note: This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit. ]**

**Los Angeles, 1982**

Okay, overall: Some good news. Weird about how it came out, but... Was it weird? Bruce was just being Bruce. That’s how he always is, doesn’t affect me. I don’t know. It was good news. A little hard to write about maybe, but I’m kind of committed to writing all this down now. Let’s just tell this story like it happens.

First of all, I’ve been keeping Bruce up to date on what I found out, and what happened. Bruce has been doing some research too. And last week he says to me, “Thor is definitely alive, Tony.”

I’m like, “Yeah? How do you know?”

Bruce comes over and he shows me, this weekend. He has this clipping from the _ Malibu Wave_, which is kind of a coupon thing they have in all the stores at home. You know, one of these free newspapers? Clipping’s dated November, so, pretty recent? Says, “Thor Odinson is due back from New Zealand,” so we know he’s still traveling etcetera. Says, “He doesn’t have any travel plans again for the immediate future.” 

Bruce is like, “You see how good this is, Tony?” And I saw.

This is really good. Number one, because we know Thor’s alive, and number two, because he lives _ in Malibu_. He lives very close to Mom and Dad, I _ know _ his house, I go by it every time I go home. Number three, is that the _ Malibu Wave _ apparently considers it news whenever he goes anyplace, so we know when we can find him at home. News doesn’t get much better than that.

Only there was the way Bruce told about it. I don’t know if that was what it was.

I don’t know what it was, and I don’t really blame Bruce for telling it the way he did. It took some detective work for him to find everything out, and can you blame a guy for wanting to show off a little? I can’t. And that there was drama with Loki, there’s always drama with Loki, and Bruce is never really that good with emotions. I really don’t even know how to explain what it was about what happened.

Let’s just go one thing at a time: First, Bruce calls me, he wants to say that Thor is alive. And he asks me, “You want to see how I found out?”

I’m like, “Bruce, I would love to see how you found out.” And since it’s January and I don’t have much classwork to do yet, I say, “You want to come over this weekend?”

So he comes over, he has two things with him. Clipping from the _ Malibu Wave_, like I said already, and a VHS tape. We shove that thing into my machine, here’s what it was: Episode of a TV show from the 1950’s. _ Person to Person_, it was called. Thor was in that TV show. Bruce says to me, “See, this is how I know he lives in Malibu. Tony, you have to watch.”

And I say to him, “Well maybe Loki would like to watch too.”

Bruce was like… I don’t even know how to put it. I’ve been talking to him about Loki. See, the whole thing kind of goes together for me. First I get haunted, only way out of that is to solve Loki’s problem. Only I have to get to know him to solve his problem, I mean, it’s not like he’s just going to tell me what his problem is, is it? Maybe some ghosts, but not Loki. So I have to get to know him, and yeah, we are sort of friends now, only… Yeah okay I get it, maybe that’s a problem.

Maybe I’m going to be sad when Loki leaves. Bruce was like, “I’m not you Tony, I can’t get close to someone when I’m just going to have to say goodbye to them again right away.” He’s like, “I don’t get how you can do it.”

I don’t know if I can. I’ve been thinking about it since then, it keeps feeling harder and harder. That wasn’t where my head was when Bruce was here though. Let me stick to the story.

Anyway, I’m saying to Bruce, “Yeah, Loki might like to watch this too.”

He’s looking at me all weird and shit, he’s like, “I don’t get how you can watch TV with ghosts, Tony.”

So I say to him, “Not ghosts, Bruce. Loki.”

He looks at me some more, then he’s like, “Yeah, that’s the problem.”

And I say to him, “_ What’s _ the problem?”

He says to me, “You know you’re going to have to send him to the Afterlife.”

I’m like, “Yeah. Eventually.”

Will I though? I honestly don’t know. I might not even be able to solve his problem, I mean if he wants to be a real star, not just a reality show star… How am I even going to do that? And if I don’t do it… If I never do it…

I think I’m okay with the Afterlife thing. I think if I ever get Loki what he wants… If I could… <strike> (Pretty damn sure I can’t.) </strike> But if I could, I think then it would be okay, I mean, I think I could say goodbye to him. He’d be happy, I’d be happy because I made him happy. <strike> (Only he kind of seems like he’s getting happier right now. I think he’s getting used to the modern world, I think he’s starting to like it. Bruce is right: _ Ghosts have to go to the Afterlife._) </strike>

Oh well. Just tell the story, Tony. Tell your huge, eager audience what happened next. Here’s what happens next: Bruce is like, “Well I don’t feel comfortable being friends with somebody when we’re just going to have to say goodbye forever in another month or two.”

I’m like, “Your loss man, Loki’s a pretty good kid.”

Bruce doesn’t answer, he just turns on the show. Here’s something else though: Loki didn’t say anything to us, but I’m pretty sure he was watching it. I mean, wouldn’t he? He doesn’t hate his brother nearly as much as he says he does.

So we were all three, watching it together (even though Bruce didn’t know that). And it was pretty much your typical oldies TV show, black and white, and those funny, short 1950’s era haircuts, and all that. Thor with his hair cut 50’s style by the way? Hilarious. I only knew him from _ Romeo and Juliet _ of course, and he had his hair long for that one. By the time he was in _ Person to Person _ he was pretty old, like in his 40’s or so, and it showed. He was fatter, and he was wearing glasses, those ugly black horn-rim things, like Buddy Holly.

He did show his house, which is how Bruce knew he lived in Malibu. There were a couple of good outside shots, and if you’ve ever seen that house? Instantly recognizable. Got to say though, and maybe it‘s because I’ve gotten to know Loki so well lately. The part that really mattered to me about the show was when Thor was talking about his family. He mostly talked about his mom and dad. His dad dies in the 30’s, his mom moves to Napa, etcetera. Pictures, and I was looking at those pictures, and I was thinking, _ Loki’s family. _

I was thinking, “Loki is watching this too. How does he feel about it?” Thor was talking about how his mom had this country place up in Napa, and how big it was, and how much she liked it. And there were these pictures of her. You know how old people mostly all look the same age? Mrs. Odinson didn’t look much older than Thor in those pictures, and she looked happy. She looked pretty (for an old woman), and happy. How must it have felt for Loki, to see that?

There was a picture of Loki too. On Thor’s mantlepiece, in with the other pictures. He looked just like he did in the videotape from the first time I saw him. Dark hair slicked back, and kind of a sensitive, nervous face. Thor didn’t even mention him, but why would he? He’d been dead like thirty years at that point. Nice to see him there, though. Nice to know his brother was still thinking about him.

I need to talk to Loki about what happened this weekend. I need to see if he wants to discuss _ Person to Person_, and I definitely want to find out what he thinks about his brother still being alive. Only, I don’t know. Bruce kind of has a point. This isn’t a friendship, not a real friendship. This is a haunting, and it needs to end. Ghosts belong in the Afterlife, not in Los Angeles, in 1982. I need to get my ass in gear and give Loki what he wants <strike> (_I can’t_) </strike>. We’re not really friends, we’re just people who met along the way, and we’re going to have to say goodbye.

__________________________

**Hollywood, 1926**

Eventually it was going to come out of course, and finally, it did. A truant officer came to the house. Pop wasn’t there of course, but Mama was. There was a scene. It’s _ not _ fair. Thor gets his lessons at the studio just like he’s always done, just like Loki used to. Damn _ stupid _ public High School. Being a kid _ stinks_.

There are scenes with Pop though. It is a quite normal psychological process that as one goes through adolescence, there are going to be conflicts with one’s parents. One can read about this in Freud’s work, or in that of any of the other major psychologists. It is also quite normal that most of the conflict is going to be with one’s same-sex parent. Fathers want to dictate everything about how their sons enter adulthood, and of course the sons are going to have other ideas.

Mama, though… Mama. She didn’t have to interfere.

Thor laughed it off. He was how he usually was about it. “He’s just playing hooky Pop,” he said. “Every kid has to rebel.”

Thor would know about rebelling of course. Like going to speakeasies with a lot of loose women, and driving around in that roadster of his. And coming in late, and getting into accidents, and barely showing up on the set on time, and all the other things he does. It’s not what Loki’s doing, it’s not at all like what he’s doing. Although probably they both count as rebelling.

If there hadn’t been a scene <strike> with Mama </strike> then Loki wouldn’t have had to find a different place to live. Pop would have thundered and roared, but who cares about that? He wouldn’t have thrown Loki out, which is what matters. They maybe just wouldn’t have talked to each other for awhile and that would have been it. Only Mama. Only the look on her face…

<strike> Not when she told Pop about the truant officer. It was at night, at dinner. Everyone was there, and they were eating. Thor was tired from a long day on the set, and Loki was tired for the same reason. He wasn’t saying that of course, but was instead feeding them the same old line. “Oh, school, it was so boring, it was so annoying! Oh, Algebra, oh Geography, oh, diagramming sentences, why do you have to take English Grammar, of all things,” and so on. And Pop and Thor would have bought it, only Mama’s face was troubled already, and it just kept getting more and more troubled. And Loki got mad at her before it was all done. It felt unavoidable, but it was so _ wrong_. </strike>

<strike> It hurts seeing a look like that on her face. And knowing you’re the one that caused it, that hurts even worse. </strike>

A studio apartment is one furnished room. Amora cosigned for it. It makes her think she’s entitled to be over here any time she wants, which is of course unacceptable. It’s better than what she wanted to begin with though, which is something.

“Loki dollink,” she said, “if there are problems at home…” -- “Praaahhhh-blems at hohhh-me” -- “You know you are always velcome here,” she said. “Ve vould love to have you, wouldn’t we Skurge?”

This of course would have been even more unacceptable. The apartment is not bad. It’s sort of cute, and it’s close to the studio, which is important. A lot of people in the business live there. And it’s a good thing he’s not living at home. There are things that can be hidden easier this way. There was the rupture. Stitches were needed for that. There are all the medications which are now necessary in the aftermath of that. Injections and pills, and all sorts of things. There are shooting schedules, and if one falls behind…

“Naturally I vould prefer you Loki dollink,” Amora said, “but there are other actresses.”

_ Other _ actresses. There will come a time when the medications aren’t necessary anymore. Painkilling injections, and pills to wake you up in the morning. Nobody uses those things forever except addicts. And in the evenings sometimes a drink or two. “Because the pills make you _ grumpy_,” Amora says. God forbid that “Loki dollink” should be _ grumpy_. That’s alright, because Amora only does business with the best bootleggers. That stuff might not be what they say it is, but at least it’s not dangerous.

Someday all this will be over. There will be a film: _ As You Like It_, starring “Lorinda” Laufeyson. There will be audiences, there will be reviews, even awards maybe. “The Academy Award for Best Actress goes to 'Lorinda' Laufeyson.” Just imagine! One more night dressed in furs, with his hair done like a flapper’s, but for such a good reason! Just to know people liked one’s performance that much.


End file.
